Decorating nozzles are used in the food industry for dispensing semi-liquid foodstuffs into containers to leave a decorative appearance on the upper surface. A decorating nozzle typically comprises a concave top plate having a central opening to which a connector is attached for connection to the supply line for the material to be dispensed. The top plate is connected to a bottom plate via a surrounding mounting ring. The bottom plate is typically flat and has a plurality of dispensing tubes depending downwardly therefrom and opening therethrough, the tubes usually being provided with a decoratively-shaped opening at the lower end to form the material dispensed therethrough. For example, the openings may be of generally star-shaped configuration.
Different materials and processes require different-sized nozzles and different configurations of dispensing tubes, for example a large number of small-diameter tubes or a smaller number of larger-diameter tubes. Forming the components of the nozzle as pressings is very costly, because a press tool has to be manufactured for each different diameter of nozzle and the number of any one size of nozzle required is not high. It is therefore an object of the invention to provide a more economical and flexible method of manufacture of the nozzles.